A user equipment such as a laptop or desktop PC (personal computer) may include a wireless data card for accessing the Internet via a wireless cellular network. The cellular network is the same as that used for voice and data communication by mobile phones; that is, a network comprising a plurality of base stations (or “Node-B”s) each defining a respective cell, and at least one higher-level network element such as radio network controller (RNC) for managing a plurality of such cells in conjunction with one another to provide a joint, coordinated coverage area. By making use of the mobile cellular infrastructure, this allows the PC to connect to the Internet even when no wired modem connection or Wi-Fi hotspot is available.
An example of a laptop PC is illustrated schematically in FIG. 1. The laptop comprises a casing 2 in which is housed a motherboard 4. The motherboard 4 comprises a system bus 5; and a central processing unit (CPU) 6, random access memory (RAM) 8 and input/output (I/O) controller 10 each connected to the system bus 5. The I/O controller 10 connects to input and output devices (not shown) such as to a keyboard, touch pad, and universal serial bus (USB) port for connecting to eternal devices such as an external memory in the form of a dongle.
The casing 2 also houses: a hard drive (H/D) 12, graphics card 14 which connects to a screen (not shown), a sound card 16 for connecting to audio inputs and outputs, a Wi-Fi card 18, and a wireless cellular data card 20, each also connected to the system bus 5. The hard drive 12 stores operating system software and user applications such as a web browser, file system application and word processing application; all of which are arranged to be loaded onto the RAM 8 for execution on the main CPU 6. The Wi-Fi card 18 allows the laptop to connect to the Internet via an external modem and wireless router in the home, office or other venue such as a café. The wireless cellular data card 20 provides an alternative way to connect to the Internet, via a wireless cellular network also used for data and voice communications by mobile phones; e.g. a UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) network, and preferably one implementing W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) radio access technology.
The wireless cellular data card 20 is a circuit board module comprising a processor chip 22 (separate from the PC's main CPU 6) and at least one antenna 24 connected to the processor 22. Alternatively the processor could be provided with a connection to an external antenna. The processor 22 comprises an embedded memory 26 on which is stored software code which when executed by the processor 22 operates it as a wireless cellular modem, thus providing the laptop with access to the Internet via the antenna 24 and the wireless cellular network described above. The software may be referred to as firmware when stored on a memory embedded on the same chip (i.e. integrated circuit) as the processor 22. When executed on the processor 22, the firmware performs much of the low level signal processing required for communication over the wireless cellular network
A process flow for manufacturing a user equipment comprising a wireless modem is now described in relation to FIG. 2 (the process is of course duplicated over multiple such equipments, but for illustrative purposes is described here from the perspective of only one equipment). The process begins at step S2 where a chip provider 50 supplies the processor chip 22 to a board producer 52 with the wireless cellular modem firmware installed onto the processor's embedded memory 26, i.e. loaded onto the memory 26 so as to make it available for execution by the processor 22. If the memory 26 is a flash memory, the installed firmware may be said to be “flashed” onto the memory.
Note that the chip provider 50 may have fabricated the chip 22 themselves, or have designed the chip 22 and arranged for its fabrication by a third party fabrication facility, or may have simply sourced the chip 22 from a third party supplier. Similarly, the chip producer 50 may have authored and/or flashed the firmware themselves, or have arranged for one or both of these be done by a third party, or have simply sourced the chips 22 with the firmware ready flashed.
At step S4 the board producer assembles the wireless cellular data card 22 by mounting the processor 22 onto a circuit board along with the antenna 24 and any other connected circuitry, and then supplies the card 22 to a board vendor 54. At step S6 the board vendor 54 supplies the board to a user equipment producer 56 (sometimes referred to as an “original equipment manufacturer”, OEM). The board vendor 54 may also perform any required certification of the design of the processor 22 and/or firmware to ensure the design meets any relevant standardisation, and may also perform any required qualification of the design of the processor 22 and/or firmware to ensure the design meets any requirements of the mobile network operator (MNO) 60 of the network(s) for which the wireless cellular data card 20 is intended. The certification and qualification are not done on a per-chip basis, for individual instances of the chip, but rather for the design of the chip and/or firmware: that is, once the design has been certified and qualified, all processors and/or firmware conforming to that design are certified and qualified.
At step S8, the OEM 56 assembles the wireless cellular data card 20 together with the motherboard 4 and any other required components 12, 14, 16 and 18 into the casing 2 to form an end-user product, in this example in the form of a laptop PC, and then supplies the product to an end user 58.
The wireless cellular data card 22 is supplied to the end user 58 in a non-enabled state. Before the end user 58 can have the wireless data card 20 enabled to access the Internet, they must have a suitable account set up with the mobile network operator 60. Therefore at step S10, the end user 58 contacts the MNO 60 to request enablement, and assuming the end user meets certain criteria such as providing valid bank details then at step S12 the MNO 60 sends a response to the end user 58 to enable the wireless data card 20. This response could take the form of mailing a SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) 28 from the MNO 60 to the end-user 58, which can then be inserted into the laptop in order to enable the wireless cellular data card 20. The response may be provided to the end user 58 via the OEM 56.